


Mouth full of teeth and heart full of regrets

by Verse



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Josh Survives AU, Werewolves, but at what price, everyone is fucked up but sometimes you got no other choices but go forward, josh centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 04:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10297910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verse/pseuds/Verse
Summary: "Prompt: Wendigo!Josh is found by the rescue crew and ends up being taken to a Area 51ish facility for supernatural creatures and cursed people alike. The others are taken there against their will since they were the last few people Josh had contact with before he started turning so, they might be able to help him regain his humanity. It's hard and the future is uncertain and frankly, that scares everyone more than the idea of Josh attacking them in his feral state."





	

The name of the world is Fear

It is Darkness, it is Cold

It is Hunger, tearing up his guts

The name of the world is Fear

And Despair.

* * *

He remembers screams, shouts, orders. He remembers the pounding of  feet on the ground, the roars of the weapons, the words echoing in the air -meaningless to him. He remembers screeching and hissing and cracking bones

and then there was silence.

* * *

When he wakes up again he is unable to move.

He tugs on the chains, bite down the iron- it doesn’t bulge. 

His screeches resonate in his small, lonely room.

* * *

“Josh?”

His whole body shivers at the familiar word- he’d heard words, before. Lot of them. This one, too. But none of them had carried any meanings to him. He barely even heard them, drowned in his disconnected thoughts of _hunger hunger hunger_ and instincts to _kill kill kill._

But not that one.

He remembers that voice -remembers _happiness_ , remembers _feelings_ \- He remembers that name -it’s him, it’s Josh, Josh is him, he is Josh-

And he _wakes up._

For the first time in forever, Josh Washington _is_ \- actually exists, more than a pack of instincts and skills driven by hunger. He’s fully conscious of his surroundings- the cold steel on his wrists and neck, the movements behind the glass in front of him.

The first coherent thoughts he forms are: _Chris is here_

The second ones are: _Leave, I’m dangerous_

Because he still feels it- the burning hunger in his stomach. Because he runs his tongue against his distorted teeth and _remembers_ , remembers the taste of raw meat and human flesh and _enjoying_ it-

His screech, this time, sounds an awfully lot like a _**no**_.

* * *

He wakes up often.

A lot of people come talk to him, behind the safety of the glass -sometimes Chris, sometimes Sam, sometimes other people he can’t remember the name of but _know_ they’re important. He can’t make up what they’re saying -yet- but their voices alone is still soothing enough to keep him from losing his mind.

And boy, wouldn’t he like to lose it.

Because sometimes, sometimes- he wakes up when they take care of him. Sometimes, sometimes- he wakes up to needles in his skin and leather in his mouth and he hears _them_

_Frères Jacques, Frères Jacques_

It would be so much simpler, he thinks, to just give up. Forget the pain, forget the cold- trade them for that insatiable  hunger already devouring him, instead of having all of them at once.

But he can’t, of course. Loneliness, after all, is way scarier than needles.

* * *

“Wherr am I?”

That’s the first coherent sentence he’s able to make. He can’t see Sam’s face, but her voice has the slightest hint of relief in it. He wonders 

“We’re in… kind area 51. Except not for aliens, but.. supernatural stuff?”

Oh

Makes sense.

“…I’m… Josh, I’m so happy you have no idea… If I could I would hug you right now. We were all afraid you wouldn’t… we thought there was no way for you to come back.”

If it wasn’t Sam he was talking to, he’d swear he heard a choked sob.

He wants to argue that he isn’t back, barely delaying the inevitable- he still blanks out and craves raw flesh and is so damn hungry- but he honestly doesn’t think he’d be able to say something that long, so he settles for:

“Why are you ere?”

“We wanted to help you. If there was a chance you could be back-”

“Sammy. The truth.”

He knows he hit the bull’s eye because she doesn’t argue further.

“…We didn’t have a choice. After they found you- they thought it could help you. Us, I mean?. We were the last persons you had contact with. So they came, grabbed us, and here we are.”

* * *

_Needles stabbing him cold chains around his wrists screeches howls frères Jacques frères Jacques why did you leave us Josh why did you force us to come here Josh couldn’t you just die and free us?  
_

* * *

They keep coming, following their own patterns- he’s stable enough to remember who he’s talking to and what they’re talking about, so he guesses he’s improving somehow.

Ashley and Sam always come before he gets food -never at the same time, though. The former talks about the story she’s planning to write with shaking hands and the later about the world outside his room -the nature, the animal, how it’s actually kinda big even though nobody can get past the fences. Chris sometime comes with Ashley, sometimes after the two girls. He’s quieter than before -Josh’s fault always his fault- but he still cracks a couple jokes when he passes by and talk about all the crazy stuff he’d seen since he’d been here -werewolves, skinwalkers, demons, from all across the country. Mike and Matt always come after the meal. Emily comes after everyone else, complaining about anything she can across the door. Jess only comes when it’s quiet and almost nobody’s out -nighttime, he guesses. She doesn’t talk a lot, unfortunately.

They’re scared, he realizes. Scared by him, scared for him, scared to be here, scared of the uncertain future.

And yet, they still come.

Josh isn’t sure if he is worth it.

* * *

“Bro! BRO!”

Josh is rubbing his now untied neck when he sees the door swings open and a figure rush in. He yelps, backing up quickly- but Chris doesn’t seem to care, getting closer and closer to finally sit down.

“Whatre you doing?! I’m dengerous!!!”

His friend shakes his head- it irritates him to end. Doesn’t he see? Doesn’t he see the teeth and claws and chains?

“You’ve improved. And- there’s something I want to show you.”

A hand takes Josh’s -contact contact gentle contact- and guides it toward is arm. Josh is confused for a second, until he feels sometghing different -a scar? No…

A bite.

“Remember when I told you there were werewolves around?”

No…

He didn’t…

“And yeah the whole full moon stuff kinda suck and I’ll gotta have the full lectures on how to have control over myself but mainly I’m stronger and I heal faster now.”

What did that have to do with anything?? He-

“I can stay with you now Josh. In here, I mean. If you lose control you won’t be able to hurt me.”

Oh.

Oh.

He definitively doesn’t deserve it, he thinks, crying.

* * *

He doesn’t know if its by accident, choices, or a bit of both, but it turns out that lycanthropia is really easily spread.

It’s horrible and selfish- but he’s glad he can have his old crew back for a few hours.

* * *

He loses it, once. Everything fades to black, just like falling asleep, except waking up achy and with blood on his mouth.

He cries, that night- curls into a ball and claws at his face. It’s the first time he’d cried in months.

They still comes back.

* * *

He doesn’t think he’ll ever go back to normal.

He is getting better- but there are things you _can’t_ recover from -neither he, neither his friends. They’re only humans, after all, scarred and scared and maybe with a bit more teeth now.

The future is uncertain, and no good endings are guaranteed- but they’re willing to try to make one together.

The future, after all, is only the result of their choices.


End file.
